Pit bull attack leads to shelter changes

A recently adopted pit bull is back at the Mendocino County Animal Care shelter to be put down after it attacked another dog while left unrestrained in the bed of a pickup truck just days after the adoption.

The incident spurred Adoption Coordinator Sage Mountainfire to tighten the training procedure pit bulls that come to the shelter must undergo before they can be adopted, she said.

"Maybe the lesson learned is (that) more interaction with other dogs (is needed)," Mountainfire said, explaining that dogs currently are allowed to interact with one other dog, both on leashes, as part of a process they go through before they are deemed adoptable.

In a (yet to be published) letter to the editor, Mike Johnson of Ukiah wrote that he was walking his dog, a spayed female, in the middle of the day Wednesday when they walked by a pit bull left unleashed in the back of a truck by the sidewalk at Main and Stephenson Streets while the owners ate at a nearby restaurant.

"The dog jumped out of the truck and immediately attacked my dog," Johnson wrote.

He kicked the pit bull as hard as he could to no effect, then tried choking the dog, "and it was like trying to choke a large piece of steel," he wrote. Johnson kicked the dog again and it let go of his dog long enough that passers-by could help him separate the dogs.

"These were the most violent, blood-soaked moments of my life," he wrote. "I even got blood on my hat."

The pit bull tried three times to rip his dog's throat out, and left her with a toenail and half of a toe torn off, several puncture wounds around her neck and shoulders and bruises, according to Johnson, not to mention the $170 veterinarian bill and the muscles Johnson pulled in the incident.

All dogs adopted from the county shelter go through an evaluation process before they are deemed adoptable, according to Mountainfire, but that doesn't mean every possible scenario can be foreseen.

"You're dealing with animals, and like some people, they can be unpredictable," she said. "I feel terrible that this incident happened. I feel bad for the man that it happened to, and I feel bad for the owner who was here in tears. It's a tragedy across the board ... We can't go back, but we can learn."

New owners are encouraged to take time to get to know their dog before putting them in situations where they would interact with people or other dogs, she said.

"Dogs should be on a leash, they should be contained," she said. "I don't even recommend taking them to the dog park. Maybe once you get to know your dog, and it's had play dates with other dogs, you could explore that."

The county's policy is that once a dog has bitten a person or another animal, that dog will not be put up for adoption, according to Mountainfire. This particular pit bull, and any other dogs that bite, are put under a rabies quarantine for 10 days under state law -- even if the animal has been vaccinated -- and, after that period, is euthanized.

In rare cases, she said, a dog can be released under certain restrictions. The adopters of the pit bull in question signed over ownership, and the dog will be euthanized.

"Because the issue with pit bulls is a charged one in our society, we do expect our pit bulls to be pretty perfect," Mountainfire said.

The Pit Crew is an all-volunteer organization that provides training specifically for pit bulls that come to the county shelter. Director Lesslie Dodds said the pit bull in this case hadn't been through the program, which teaches the dogs basic obedience and manners -- including teaching the dogs not to jump up on people or pull on the leash during a walk.

"He was adopted before I even had a chance to take a look at him," Dodds said of the pit bull in question. The dog had been fitted for a harness used in the training, which typically sees results in six to eight weeks, she said. A dog is usually put down if it shows aggressive behavior during training, she said.

Dodds said while all dogs are evaluated by county staff, as a result of the incident, she will take over the evaluation of all pit bulls that come to the county shelter. She also has other "drastic changes" she'd like to discuss with county officials, she said.

Dodds wants to see the dogs go through at least two of her Pit Crew classes before being adopted, and owners go through a mandatory number of classes before the adoption can be finalized. The classes Dodds offers for adopters are free, and less than 1 percent of new owners take advantage of that, she said.

Mountainfire said the shelter needs feedback from adopters so it can learn from after-adoption experiences with pets -- good and bad.

"Any incident with an animal adopted from the shelter is cause to look at how we're going. That's what we would do when any adoption goes wrong," Mountainfire said, giving the example of a new owner finding ear mites in a cat's ears the next day spurring the development of a protocol for more thorough checking of cats' ears before they are adopted.

Every dog that comes to the shelter is evaluated the same way for adoptability, she said. Shelter staff watches a dog's behavior in the kennel for "How does it interact with people -- is it friendly or aloof; how does it relate to cats in the lobby and in cages, does it guard its food and toys, how does it do in meeting another dog on a leash."

All of that testing is done in a controlled environment, according to Mountainfire.

"We wouldn't have dogs off-leash," she said.

She continued, "If you anticipate any problems, you should come right back to us and say, Hey, I'm seeing this,'" and further evaluation may reveal that the pet and owner aren't compatible. "That is no reflection on the animal, or on you," Mountainfire added.

Tiffany Revelle can be reached at udjtr@pacific.net, on Twitter @TiffanyRevelle or at 468-3523.